Backchannelmedia

New Straits Times

By Aimie Pardas

EACH month, credit card holders will get a brochure listing the different promotions their credit card can offer. This is one of the ways that banks can entice people to apply for their credit cards - by offering special discounts at certain shops and special promotions.

But credit card holders are faced with more than one offer and a list of shops that the card can be used. Unless you have a good memory, you would need to bring the brochure everywhere you go to keep track of the discounts available.

Why not insert the credit card into a smart chip reader, go through a list of offers and discounts available, and just choose the ones you really want?

Astro and Public Bank are already making this option available to Public Bank's Visa credit card holders.

Astro has set up a new dedicated Astro Interactive Channel 800 that lists all the current coupons that can be downloaded electronically onto Public Bank Visa credit cards.

And the reader is actually the Astro decoder or set-top box, which has two slots - one of which is for the credit card.

Public Bank Visa credit card holders can simply insert the card into the second slot of any Astro decoder and, using the remote control, go to Channel 800, select a coupon and download it into the credit card.

The TV-Coupons are then automatically redeemable at participating merchant outlets when the same Public Bank Visa Card is presented for credit card payment.

The credit card is able to store up to five Astro Interactive TV- Coupons and each coupon can have five offer items, depending on merchant promotions. Users have to manually load and delete them, and the coupons can be used as many times within the validity period.

All Public Bank Visa card members (both principal or supplementary cardholders) can enjoy this interactive service as long as they have access to an Astro decoder.

There are no fees charged to Astro viewers or Public Bank Visa card members for downloading or redeeming the TV-Coupons.

Promotions can also change each week and users won't have to wait for a brochure to come in every month.

Currently, eight merchants are onboard.

Patrick Ow, project manager for Interactive TV Coupon, said the whole idea was to utilise the smartcards. "It's actually a digitised promotion based on coupons rather than a paper coupon."

The only requirement of this service is that a user must have a Public Bank Visa card. Cardholders do not have to be Astro subscribers but can go to any Astro decoder to download the coupon, he added.

With this, there are potentially 1.7 million decoders that can act as terminals to read credit cards or smartcards, Ow explained.

Before downloading the coupon, cardholders may also find out more information about the offer at hand. Currently, only the basic information about the offer is available on the channel but in the future, it can be even more interactive. For example, if a manufacturer wants to launch a new model, it will link to it and get more information at a particular channel, including more coupons, Ow said.

"It can drive traffic to a merchant and be more interactive."

Cardholders can press the red button on the Astro remote control for more information about the product or ask for brochures. It all depends on the merchants who come onboard, he said.

This interactive service uses international smartcard standard security features. However, in the first half of next year, users are expected to be able to do financial transactions, making the decoder box like a POS terminal, Ow said. For example, users may be able to pay bills, do television commerce or order at home, but this is all pending regulatory approval.

"This is the first step towards television commerce."

Moving forward, Astro Interactive requires the fixed line back- channel SSL connectivity from the decoder to Astro's host.

The decoders must be connected to a normal telephone line for these services to be enabled.

"Astro Interactive TV-Coupons is a prelude to TV-Commerce or TV- Shopping on Astro Interactive Channel 800, where it is a transactional base, thus creating the stickiness in interactive TV."

Ow said the types of TV-Commerce or TV-Shopping services planned for next year include online shopping, interactive advertisement, product or brochure request and general inquiries (Government included). However, it will depend on bandwidth availability, especially when Measat 3 satellite is made available to Astro next year, he explained.

"Essentially with a second smartcard reader in all 1.76 million decoders, any contact smartcards like the EMV credit cards, ATM bankcards, and chip-based smartcards/loyalty cards can be used in any Astro decoder," he said, adding that Astro Interactive seeks to provide a multi-platform for various parties like financial institutions, loyalty providers, technology providers, smartcard providers, merchants/retailers and customers who are Astro subscribers.